


By Clannad

by StarblazeAndSolaris



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Humor, Marauders, Music, Young Marauders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 15:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1516505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarblazeAndSolaris/pseuds/StarblazeAndSolaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Sirius' birthday coming up, Remus thinks he's found him the perfect present.  Now if they could only stop laughing long enough to wrap it up...</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Clannad

**Author's Note:**

> This is our first fic posted on AO3, and was originally posted on fanfiction.net before being taken down. Please note: contains British humour. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: Do you think Sol would have spent a stupid amount of time typing this onto the computer from the notepad if we were JKR? Nah. We’d have paid someone else to do it, and avoided the RSI.

The dormitory was empty, calm and peaceful.  The red hangings were plush, still glowing in the aftermath of house elf repairs, and the afternoon sun shone lazily through the wide window.  A teenage boy crouched at the foot of one luxurious bed, oblivious to the peace as he flicked frantically through the pair of books before him, occasionally lifting his head to glare at the muggle contraption before him, then returning to his work.  After a moment, he seemed to find what he was searching for in one book, and he swept his tawny hair from his eyes as he leaned back, spine cracking with each movement.  He sighed, amber eyes drifting shut.  A second later he sighed again, and began searching the second book, eyes skimming the page with practised speed.

“Remus?” The boy jumped, spinning with feral grace until he was standing, crouched, body blocking the contraption from the other boy's view.  A moment later, he relaxed, standing straight and sighing.

“Peter, how many times have I told you not to creep up on me when I'm working?”

“Sorry Moony,” said the blond boy bashfully, hand reaching up to run through his hair in a way which betrayed too much time spent with one James Potter.

“It's all right.  Shut the door.”  Peter did as he was told, then went to stand by Remus, who had returned to his books.

“Why do you have a muggle record player?” asked Peter curiously.  Remus looked up, a smile on his face.

“I'm going to give it to Sirius for his birthday tomorrow.  Trouble is, I'm struggling to make it work in the magical environment.”

“So that's what you're up to.  Do you have any disks?”

“Only two.  Why?”  The blond looked mock affronted.

“Just curious.”  He continued to watch until Remus let out a whoop, and leapt from the floor, prancing around the room once in a chaotic victory dance before dropping back to the floor with his eyes sparkling.

“I take it you figured it out then,” stated Peter dryly, a smile on his face.  Remus merely grinned in response and snatched his wand from his bed before turning back to the disk player.  Peter's smile became rueful, and he moved over to James' trunk, speaking as he searched it.

“I'm not going to get any sense out of you until you're finished, am I?”  A pause.  “Nope, thought not.  Where's that ruddy map?  Ah, got it.  Bye Remus.”  Remus waved a hand vaguely in Peter's direction as the blond boy left, and returned to muttering under his breath.

 

A few minutes of silence passed, until the calm of the room was broken by a yell.

“Yippee!” Remus whooped, and threw himself into a victory dance even wilder than the first.  He laughed as he did so, carefree and wild in his joy.

“I did it!  I did it!  It works!  It's alive!”  He doubled over then, overcome by a fit of laughter at his unintentional quote.  When he finally regained his breath, he let it all out in a happy sigh, then returned to his bed to pick up a large, flat, black disc with a hole in the middle.  He laid it carefully on the turntable, and gently touched the machine arm to it.  For a moment nothing could be heard but the buzz of the player and the murmur of conversations in the common room, but then music spurted from it and erased the frown on Remus’ face.  He listened to the music for a while, lying on his bed with a gentle smile on his face and his eyes shut.

The first song came to a close, and the second started.  Remus hummed vaguely along to the tune, which flowed gently through the air, like a wave building and cresting in verse.

 

_A blind bargain, can’t you see,_

_A cloud of secrecy,_

_Voices whispering, for they might get hurt,_

_Play with fire, be insane,_

_It’s a danger game,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star lights the way._

 

The chorus began, and Remus shot upright in shock, eyes wide and jaw hanging.  He stared at the player until the chorus finished, grin growing wider with each passing moment, then took a beat to lean over and pause it before bursting into hysterical laughter.  He remained that way, collapsed bonelessly on his bed until James stormed up from the common room to ask what was happening that made Remus find it necessary to disrupt a conversation with _Lily Evans_ by laughing.  The fact that, as a result of their conversation, James was sporting a devil’s tail and horns through his uniform did not help calm Remus’ giggles.

“Listen,” he managed to croak, reaching over again to let the music continue playing.  His chuckles subsided at James’ glare, although the latter did listen peaceably until the chorus arrived.

 

_Our ocean’s a red sea,_

_But you won’t change your ways,_

_Moving close, as the giant stares on,_

_The money and the power, unite,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star leads the way._

 

The instant the chorus returned, however, his jaw practically hit the floor.  He recovered quickly, pausing the music to talk to Remus through sudden, uncontrollable laughter.

“He’s going to be terrible!”

“Insufferable!”

“Oh Merlin,” gasped James, “We have to show Peter!” Remus nodded, gathered his breath and his wits about him, and stepped towards the door.  He stopped suddenly, eyebrows furrowed, and James nearly walked into him.

“What?”

“Pete’s got the map,” Remus explained patiently.  James rolled his eyes in response.

“And where does Pete automatically gravitate to whenever he gets the map?” he replied, condescension evident in every word.  Remus grinned sheepishly and grabbed James’ elbow, dragging him, devil-tail and all, down the stairs.

“Kitchens, here we come.”

 

 

Peter Pettigrew, occasionally known as Wormtail, was perfectly content, thank you very much.  He had a warm fire behind him, a hot chocolate beside him, and a vast bowl of trifle in front of him.  He was not, therefore, overjoyed when two of his fellow Marauders burst in, laughing raucously, pulled him from his seat and proceeded to drag him backwards and by the armpits towards the door.

“James!  Remus!  Let go of me, you morons!  I’m busy!  Remus, I’d expect Sirius to do this, not you! What would McGonagall say?  Let me go!  I’m busy already!”  Remus looked down at him with a simple, cheerful smile, and said,

“Yes, you are.  You are coming to the dorm with us and listening to some music.”  Peter started struggling even more.  This was not normal Remus behaviour.

“What’s the catch?  Actually, I don’t want to know. Just let me go back to my hot chocolate!” Remus froze, then left James clinging to Peter’s arm and dashed back into the kitchen.  A moment later he returned, large block of chocolate being pushed into a robe pocket as he grasped Peter’s flailing arm firmly.  With a decisive nod to James, he spun the three of them to face away from the kitchen entrance.

“Come on, you need to see – hear, even, this Pete!” said James when Peter tried to slither from their grasp.  Remus gave Peter what had been dubbed ‘The Prefect Look,’ and spoke without looking away.

“We’ll just have to levitate him, Prongs.”  James grinned even wider, stepped back and pulled his wand out.  Peter stopped struggling as he felt Remus release him, and suddenly discovered that the ceiling was a lot closer than before.

“I swear to Merlin James, if you drop me, I will… what’s that word?  It’s a Remus-y word…  Castrate you.”  Remus laughed openly as James pouted.

“That’s not very nice Pete.  Besides, that would deprive the lovely lady Lily of her rightful property.”  Peter and Remus snorted as James’ face became dreamy, but Peter quickly broke through James’ daydream.

“James!  Pay attention, you brainless, love-struck doe!  I’m falling!”  James’ eyes snapped back to the wobbling blond and with a flick of his wand, Peter was steady again.  The boy in question folded his arms while Remus watched, amused.

“You can let me down now, you know.  I’m not about to run away.  Honest.”  James assumed a shocked expression, although he could not hide the spark of amusement in his eyes.

“Nonsense!  Life is much more fun this way!”  With that, the dark-haired boy set off down the corridor at a brisk pace, Peter trailing behind and above him like a demonic balloon, cursing fluently.  Remus followed, chuckling.

 

 

“Wormy, pass the map.”  The blond rolled his eyes, stood up from his seat on Sirius’ bed, and fished a slightly grubby piece of parchment from his back pocket.  He passed it across to James, saying,

“So, you’ve kidnapped me.  What did you want me for?”  James was apparently too busy scanning the map to reply, so Remus took over.

“I fixed this.”  He waved a hand towards the disk player, and understanding dawned on Peter’s face, shortly followed by incredulity.

“You dragged me up here for _that!_ ”  You couldn’t have shown me, say, tomorrow?”  Remus grinned, and James’ evil grin seemed particularly suitable with the horns that were still poking through his messy black locks.  Peter edged away from them, suddenly nervous.

“Erm… there’s more, isn’t there?”  Their grins widened, and James reached over to set the disk turning again with a wink.

“There sure is.  Listen to the lyrics!”

 

_The brightness in this sky,_

_Light years we’ve tried,_

_As our children’s children, become lonely cries._

_The money and the power, divide us,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star lights the way._

 

The chorus rang out a third and final time, and Remus thought absently that if Peter’s eyes bugged out any further, they would fall out and roll under James’ bed, with all of the other poor lost things.  But then he heard the lyrics again, and could hold his laughter no longer.  Within moments, the three of them had collapsed on the floor, or in Remus’ case, James’ bed, laughing almost loudly enough to drown the final phrases of the music out.  James stopped the music as it tried to continue to the next song, and moved the player arm until the starting chords of the song echoed in the room.  The song played through again, interrupted at intervals by uncontrollable giggles.  Finally, Remus sat up, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes and switched off the player, carefully putting the disk back in its case and hiding it, with the music player, in his trunk.  Peter’s jaw was still trembling with the after effects of laughter and surprise.

“Wow!” he bubbled, “they wrote a song about him!”  James rolled his eyes, still grinning from ear to ear.

“Not really Pete.  But we -”

“Yes really!  It got everything right!  He is insane!”  Peter’s interruption just caused more laughter from the other two, until James continued.

“We will never be lost again, now we have our very own guiding star!”  Remus snorted his laughter, and Peter’s brain got it a moment later and joined in sniggering at James’ feeble joke.

 

 

Sirius dropped onto the bench with a huge sigh and started piling food onto his plate.  Remus watched, fascinated, as Sirius beat Peter to the last Yorkshire pudding and added gravy, ignoring the tubby boy’s disgruntled expression.

“So, Sirius, how was detention with your favourite furry friend?”  Sirius shot James a glare and continued to shovel food until Peter, still annoyed about the pudding, kicked him sharply in the shin.

“Ow!  What was that for?”

Remus intervened.

“Now Padfoot, don’t kill Pete.  You know Yorkshire pud and beef is his favourite.”  Sirius looked sheepish for a moment, then shrugged and returned to his meal.  “Sirius, James asked you a question.  You have been very rude to all of us; the least you can do is apologise and answer him.”  Sirius looked up, eyes wide and the sound of Remus’ ‘Prefect Voice.’  Sure enough, the latter was doing the face to go with it, and he felt his inner troublemaker shrink away, and James do the same beside him.

“S’rry,” he muttered, looking down.  Remus coughed, looking pointedly at first Peter, then James.  Sirius sighed.

“Sorry Wormy, Prongs.  Detention was one hell of a bastard.  Pringle had his bloody cat sit in the doorway while I scrubbed the whole of _Moaning Myrtle_ ’s bathroom with a muggle toothbrush.  You _know_ she’s got a crush on me.”  By the end of his tale, all three of the others were first grinning, then sniggering, and finally laughing loudly at the idea.

“Don’t cast me aside, Siri!” called James in a falsetto voice.

“Light the way to your room, my love!” choked Peter, his voice squeaking like a rodent.  Remus had tears of laughter spilling from the corners of his eyes when he forced out,

“Lead the way, guiding star!”  Sirius scowled, and demanded to know what they were talking about.

“And you can’t laugh James, she’s got a crush on you too!”  Peter grinned evilly and stage whispered to Remus,

“He’s going to play with fire now!”  Remus choked on his potato, and Peter whacked him thoroughly on the back while James laughed more fiercely than ever.

“You must be insane, Peter, to tease him so!”  Remus tried to put on his ‘Prefect Face,’ and James gave up all and any pretence of civility, laying his head on the table and quaking with laughter.  Sirius backhanded his friend on the shoulder, but all he gained in result was a renewed flood of chuckles.  James clutched his side just long enough to force out,

“You won’t change your ways.  Myrtle’s not getting lucky any time soon, then?”  Remus and Peter laughed too, grinning at each other as Sirius’ nose crinkled in disgust, before his face smoothed out as comprehension arrived.

“Eww!  Alright you lot, you can quit taking the piss now.  What do you know that I don’t?”  The others sniggered for a moment, then Remus paused to reply,

“There’s a cloud of secrecy, can’t you see?”  Peter’s dubious self-control slipped, and his laughter became a hysterical, gasping series of squeaks, his face purpling due to lack of oxygen.  There was a flurry of activity around the now maroon Marauder, and when it cleared, he lay on the table, head in a plate of roast potatoes and parsnips, and feet elevated by resting each one on a gravy jug.  Sirius and James had taken it upon themselves to persuade Peter to live by dangling various articles of food over his face.  To do this, they found they had to lean on his torso, turning his laughing fit into an outright war to breathe.  Remus rescued one shoe from the gravy jug as it fell from his now limp foot, but the other landed with a muffled splash before he could reach it.  He wrinkled his nose in revulsion as he fished it from the jug, but his repulsion quickly turned to mischief as he contemplated first the soggy, stinking shoe, and then Sirius.

“Hey Padfoot?”  As Sirius turned, he flicked his wrist to catapult the shoe away from him.  Sirius let out a scream about two octaves too high for a respectable, post-pubescent male as it collided with his head.

“ _My hair!_ ”

Remus smirked as he ducked under the table, re-emerging on the far side from the now gravy-covered Sirius.  He and Sirius had essentially swapped places, so Remus took advantage of the moment to steal a parsnip from Sirius’ plate and drop it into his mouth.  The latter swept gravy from his eyes and fringe before picking up the filthy shoe between his thumb and forefinger.  He narrowed his eyes at Remus, but when he threw the shoe, it landed not on the nimble werewolf, but on the grinning, messy-haired, teenage boy beside him.  The projectile made a respectable splat as it encountered his forehead, and nose, smearing his glasses liberally with gravy.

“ _Sirius!_ ” roared James, grasping the nearest goblet and thrusting the contents into the other boy’s face.  Peter, who had just regained the ability to breathe due to a lack of teenage boy on his chest, mistakenly chose the same moment to sit up from where he lay on the table top.

“Hey, where are my sh -” a face full of fluid cut him off mid-word, and although he spat most of it out over Remus, he was still capable of diving from the polished wood onto James, driving him to the floor with a war cry of,

“You _know_ I hate coffee!”  Unfortunately for Sirius, who had joined the other three on their side of the table, and was suspending a plate of assorted vegetables above his wrestling friends, Professor McGonagall chose that moment to appear.

“Black!  Potter!  Pettigrew!  Lupin!  Stop that raucous behaviour this instant!”  Peter looked up from his perch on James’ stomach, his watery blue eyes wide and innocent.

“Please, Professor, he’s got my shoes!”

“Silence, all of you.  Potter, give Pettigrew his shoes.  _Now_.  Follow me, all of you.  I don’t know what you were thinking, brawling in the middle of dinner.  He may have had your shoes, Pettigrew, but two wrongs do not make a right!”  Peter rolled his eyes at Professor McGonagall’s back as they followed her from the hall and the gazes of the awed first years, Remus carrying Peter’s dry shoe, and James the damp one.

 

 

“You should all be ashamed of yourselves!”  James and Sirius stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Professor McGonagall’s desk, with Peter and Remus flanking them.  Peter had not yet mastered the delicate art of appearing to pay attention whilst in mid-daydream, so his eyes were glazed over and fixed on a point just above Professor McGonagall’s hair.  James and Sirius may have appeared attentive to the untrained eye, but to Remus it was blindingly obvious that they were doing their ‘Silent Communication’ thing again.

Although, he amended, this may be because McGonagall could not see their tapping and writing on each other’s wrists behind them.

“It feels like light years we’ve tried to teach you all decent behaviour!  If you keep going like this I’ll have your children’s children in detention!”  Remus fought to keep his face straight, a problem none of the others seemed to have, absorbed as they were in their own daydreams.

“Boys!”  All four snapped back to real attention, and Peter shook his head to clear it.  Remus mentally groaned: she was sure to give them a lecture now about listening when she talked.

“That will do for now.  You have detention tonight at seven, by the lake.  Mr Pringle will meet you in the entrance hall at five to.  You are dismissed for now, but do not let me catch you brawling again.  Oh, and Mr Potter, go to the hospital wing and have Madame Pomfrey remove the horns.”  Remus nodded obediently, slapping a hand over James’ mouth to stifle his complaints. (“But I think they rather suit me, Prof!  They didn’t at first, but now they’re growing on me.”)  He grabbed Sirius’ arm with his other hand, and pulled them from the office before they caused any more damage.

 

 

The shadows of four boys followed the shadow of the caretaker down the hill.  They danced over the dips and mounds, morphing as they went.  The caretaker’s shadow stopped at the lakeside, and waited as the boys’ shadows caught up with him, appearing to merge into one as they approached.  A sixth shadow moved to join them, this one about twice the size of each teenager.

“Hello _Gamekeeper_ ,” sneered the caretaker, his dark, pointed face twisting.  “I’ll be back at ten for them.”  The taller man, the gamekeeper, nodded, and the caretaker turned and retreated to the castle, his shadow dancing in an energetic manner which his tired body could not mimic.  The gamekeeper watched him go in silence, then turned to the four boys, his wild, bushy beard obscuring his face in the shade.  He stepped forward into the dusk light, and the boys saw the broad grin on his face.  Matching grins appeared on theirs, and James and Sirius, the tallest Marauders, stepped forward and clapped him on the forearm, which was as high as they could reach.

“Hey fellah,” they said, voices chiming in unison.

“Hello Hagrid,” said the shortest boy.  Remus just grinned, and winked cheerfully at the huge man.

“Hi boys.  What were yeh up to this time to annoy ol’ Pringle?”  They all laughed as James and Sirius recounted the food fight, before Hagrid clapped a vast hand to Peter’s back to guide them around the lake.  At a shingle beach, he led them down to the water’s edge, and let out a piercing whistle.  It echoed off the water and banks, and for a minute all was quiet, save the lapping of the water against stone.  Hagrid lifted his hands to his mouth, and let out another high pitched call.  This time however, when it faded, the boys could hear a faint rush of water and see a dark shadow growing as it approached them from the bottom of the lake.

“Now boys,” started Hagrid, smiling proudly, “the thing to remember is he’s just lef’ the larvae stage, an’ is now juvenile.  ‘E’s what yeh’d call a teenager.  Don’ scare ‘im, now.”  The shadow swelled even more, making the waters swish aside as it broke the surface.  Hagrid’s eyes grew dreamy.  “Ain’ ‘e jus’ a beauty?” he said.  The boys exchanged looks.  The pubescent, juvenile squid before them was many things, but not beautiful.  It was large, lumpy and closely resembled a child’s nightmare-style monster, all tentacles, slime, and bulging eyes.  The main body of the creature was reminiscent of a slightly-deflated balloon, and a deep, gleaming purple, shot through with blacks, blues and reds.  Its tentacles also glowed with bizarre colours and shapes, each of the ten limbs a slightly different shade of the darker end of the spectrum.

“’Ello, Dixo – these boys are ‘ere to ‘elp with yer cut tentacle.  I tol’ yeh t’ stay away from them merpeople.  They’re plain mean wi’ those spears.”  The vast cephalopod seemed to shrink away from the gamekeeper’s reprimand, but it lifted a colourful tentacle from the water and held it, dripping, over Peter.

“Hey!” he complained, moving away and shaking droplets from his hair. “Bloody octopus.”

“No, Peter, ‘e’s a squid,” corrected Hagrid, moving forward to support the weight of the tentacle and explore a short length of it with his huge hands.  “Gotcha.  Yeh stay still now, y’ hear me?”  The giant squid moved up and down in a way which could be construed as a nod, and Hagrid set the boys to work, taking a bucket, bandages, creams and a suturing kit from his seemingly endless jacket pockets.  They worked well together, cleaning, creaming and finally sewing up and bandaging the gaping wound as Hagrid cooed reassurances to the squid.  Finally, as the sun reached the horizon, they were finished.  James wiped his sticky hands absent-mindedly on Remus’ sleeve until Remus elbowed him, then sat down heavily on the shingle.  Sirius, Remus and Peter followed suit, and for a moment there was silence as they watched Hagrid, face soft with adoration, help the giant squid move its healing tentacle back into the water.  A second tentacle emerged, and gave Hagrid a thank you tap which sent him staggering.  The mixture of blood and reddened sunlight turned the lake a deep crimson-brown, shimmering with hints of gold.

“Hey Padfoot!” hissed James.  “Look at the lake!”

“Our own ocean, glowing -” he began dramatically, but Remus cut him off.

“Our ocean’s a red sea,” he told them, his face an emotionless mask.  It cracked, however, when James added solemnly,

“While the giant stares on.”

When Hagrid returned to where they were seated on the beach, he was met by the sight of an irritated and slightly confused Sirius sitting in the middle of three other boys, all of whom were laughing hysterically.  Hagrid sighed, and sent them, still laughing, up to the castle, pointing out the silhouette of Pringle as he made his unsteady way over the darkening grounds.

 

 

Sirius stretched contentedly in the cosy warmth of his bed covers, arching into the pleasant stretch.  He flopped back onto the mattress and yawned widely, his jaw cracking, before he rolled over and pushed at the curtain with the hand not trapped beneath his torso.  With the red fabric safely out of the way, he could see the clock on Remus’ bedside table.  He squinted, sure he was reading it wrong.  Nope.  He had, voluntarily, and without a wake-up alarm, awoken at fourteen past five in the morning, before even the sun was up.  He groaned quietly to himself, letting the curtain fall and rolling back onto his back.  Then a smile spread across his lips, turning into a fully-fledged grin that lit up his face.  He tore the drapes open, the metal rings scraping loudly across the bar, but Sirius ignored the noise in favour of sprinting across the room to the window.  He wrenched the curtains open and glanced up at the tiny sliver of moon, which dulled his exuberance for a moment, but the moment was quickly erased.  He bounded to each of the other three beds, and pulled their curtains wide, then stepped back to the centre of the room, pointed his wand at his throat, and muttered,

“Sonorus.”  A grin followed this, and he bellowed his next words at the top of his lungs.  “ _WAKEY WAKEY SLEEPYHEADS!  IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!”_   Yelps of horror and distress from each of the beds were music to Sirius’ ears, and there were various thumps and bangs from the floors above.  Sirius pranced down into the common room, still shouting, and started emitting sparks and banners from his wand.  Remus and James followed him down, yawning, and Peter trailed after them, absently scratching below the waistline of his pyjama pants.

“Si-Sirius,” yawned James, eyes half shut, “what the hell are you doing up at stupid o’clock in the morning, on a Tuesday?”  Sirius merely beamed, his wand emitting a constant flow of now-purple glitter, which was piling up into a small, sparkling molehill beside him.  Remus attempted to explain through the haze of sleep.

“I’ss his birthday,” he said, twisting on the spot and ignoring Peter’s wince as his spine popped and crackled.  “He thinks this is how it is appropriate to celebrate.”  Sirius slung an arm round the smaller boy’s shoulders, and told him affectionately,

“Only you, Moony, would use the words ‘appropriate’ and ‘celebrate’ when you are still half-asleep.”  Remus cringed away from his friend.

“Sirius!”

“Whaddid I do?”

It was Peter who answered this time, from the safety of the stairs.

“You are still yelling at the top of your voice due to whatever it was you used, and you know about Moony’s ears.  I don’t think he wanted, er, lime green feet, either.”  Sirius looked ashamed for a moment, and took that time to stop his wand from misbehaving.

“Er… choircus?” he tried, but when he next opened his mouth, the voice of a soprano opera singer greeted them.  For a split second there was silence, but the next three of the Marauders had burst into laughter.  Sirius tried to object, but all that escaped was a flowing scale of notes in an abnormally high register.  He stamped his foot in frustration, but the laughter of his friends merely increased, and he realised that he had put his foot in the glitter-mound, sending purple sparkles into the air in a mist, before they began to settle again, on the floor, and on him, leaving him covered in a thin layer of shimmering purpleness.  He let out a mournful

“Laaa!” but joined in, his tinkling laughter mingling with the deeper laughter of the other boys.

 

They had retreated to the dormitory after Remus had calmed down enough to fix Sirius’ singing problem, although the latter was still sparkling gently in the rising sun’s rays.  The four Marauders were seated comfortably in a nest of duvets and pillows filched from the beds and piled on the floor.  A small amount of relatively flat space had been cleared in the centre, and a pile of presents had been assembled there, like offerings before a shrine.  Sirius grinned brightly, and leapt forwards.  He seized the largest present, a knee-height cuboid, and turned it around on the spot, searching for a tag.

“ _Dear Padfoot, to discourage the humiliation of Slytherins, and to encourage the party that you know is coming your way.  Moony._ ” He read out.  “Cheers Moons!”  He tore the paper from the present with his typical cheerful fervour.  When he saw the cardboard box, he frowned, but shrugged and proceeded to tear it apart.  Remus pretended to disapprove, but the effect was ruined by his fond grin.  Sirius rolled his eyes at the deep wood of the case, polished to a soft gleam.

“What is this, pass the parcel?” Peter asked Remus wryly.  The purebloods stared at them, but the pair of half-bloods just shared a patronising look, and Sirius returned to the box.  It was deep, maybe the depth of one and a half of the drawers in the set beside each bed.  The hinges and latch were gold in colour, but everybody knew they were not real gold: it was far beyond Remus’ budget.  Engraved in the top was a simple, five pointed star.  Sirius unlatched it gently and opened it.  His expression of childish curiosity turned to bewilderment, and then comprehension dawned.

“This is one of those Muggle music players, isn’t it?” he asked excitedly.  “How does it work?  Does it need a charm?”  Remus laughed, and told him,

“Look in the drawer.”  Sirius inspected the record player more closely, and found that when he had opened the lid, the front had dropped down, and below a tilted panel of controls was a hollow area.  He reached his hand into this gap, and his fingers returned with two large, vinyl disks in card cases.  He grinned.

“Awesome!  You remembered how much I love Freddie Mercury!  Who’re these guys?”  The other three Marauders snickered, but James just said,

“We’ll play that later.  Queen for now, and presents!”  The boys laughed, and Remus helped Sirius put the record on the turnstile and set the needle down.  Within moments, the tune of ‘Slightly Mad’ filtered into the dormitory, and the present opening resumed.  Sirius had been given a book entitled ‘Curses Down the Centuries’ by his parents, which found its way only halfway from the packaging before it found itself in the ever-growing heap of general-purpose filth beneath James’ bed, but Peter’s gift of a ‘Honeydukes Specialist Selection’ was greeted with great enthusiasm. (“ _Sugar!_ ”)  James had provided Sirius with a Zonko’s ‘Magical Mayhem’ kit of fireworks and other assorted explosives.  Sirius determined to use the fireworks, (which spelled out whatever the user wanted,) to proclaim his brilliance at dinner.  And possibly Snape’s greasiness.  To the sound of the Bohemian Rhapsody, Sirius played the air guitar, while the others laughed, but when it ended, he jumped down from his bed and pressed pause.  When James cocked an eyebrow at him, he explained.

“I want to listen to the other one.  Clar-nnaad.”  Peter and Remus winced slightly at the pureblood’s mutilation of the pronunciation, but Remus still helped Sirius to remove the player’s needle arm, take the disk from the turnstile and put it away carefully.  While Sirius flopped down on Remus’ bed, Remus took the chance to put the new disk on and move the needle to the start of a specific track.  He smirked at James and Peter, who grinned in return, and hit play.  Music filled the air, swelling and falling, until the chorus arrived.  Sirius, who had been lounging on the edge of Remus’ bed, jumped violently and hit the floor with a thud.  He stared open-mouthed at the record player, and as the chorus rolled to a close and the instruments took up the tune, his eyes began to sparkle and his face transformed into a bright, mischievous grin.  He pushed up off the floor, vaulted over James and Peter, who were lying on the bed cover nest, crying with laughter, and paused it.  He then grabbed the whole player and sprinted out of the dorm.  The others continued to laugh, until Remus took a deep breath and fought back the light-headedness and the urge to giggle.

“He’s going to terrorise the common room, isn’t he?”

“Yup.”  James grabbed Peter by the elbow and half-dragged him, still chuckling, down the stairs after Remus.  Stumbling into the common room, their laughter began again as they saw Sirius, standing proudly on one of the tables, head flung back and arms spread wide, dancing cheerfully for a growing crowd of drowsy, laughing Gryffindors.  The instrumental intro ended, and the voices took up the song, Sirius joining in at the choruses.

 

_A blind bargain, can’t you see,_

_A cloud of secrecy,_

_Voices whispering, for they might get hurt,_

_Play with fire, be insane,_

_It’s a danger game,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star lights the way._

_Sirius, ah –_

_Our ocean’s a red sea,_

_But you won’t change your ways,_

_Moving close, as the giant stares on,_

_The money and the power, unite,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star leads the way._

_Sirius, ah –_

_The brightness in this sky,_

_Light years we’ve tried,_

_As our children’s children, become lonely cries._

_The money and the power, divide us,_

_Cast aside,_

_Guiding star lights the way._

_Sirius,_

_We’ll see who cares,_

_Sirius,_

_For those that dare,_

_Sirius,_

_Time will tell,_

_Sirius,_

_Time will tell,_

 

**_Finis_ **


End file.
